Flat Stanley

On Friday we looked at a map of the world. We then counted the different continents and found out that there are 7 continents in the world. We played a fun game to help us remember the different continents. You can practice with this game at home, just click on the link. We talked about some of the places that we are sending our Flat Stanley letters. Next week we are going to write our letters and practice addressing envelopes. We can't wait to post them!

INQUIRY

A VISIT FROM STAMFORD!

We were very lucky to have a special visitor on Friday... Stamford, Mrs Sullivan's new puppy.
Mrs Sullivan is going to bring Stamford in for another visit in one month so that we can see how he changes. We noticed his big paws so we think he is going to come back much bigger!

Here are some of the questions that we asked Mrs Sullivan:

Where did you get Stamford from (Esme)
From a breeder in Christchurch. He came in a special puppy crate in a plane!

When did you get your puppy? (Rory)
We got our puppy when he was 8 weeks old and we got him one month ago.

How do puppies Grow? (Sam)
Puppies grow by eating good healthy food.

What do puppies eat? (Evie)
Puppies eat meat and vegetables. And they have special puppy food just for puppies. Stamford eats Weet-Bix for breakfast. They drink fresh water and goat’s milk.

When do puppies bark? (Harper)
When they are happy, or scared or excited. When somebody comes to the house.

Why do they chew everything? (Holly)
Because their teeth are coming through and they need something to help their teeth push through the gums.

Blending Colours

We looked closely at some of Van Gogh's paintings. We then decided to create some of our own paintings of flowers in a vase. We blended primary colours to make secondary colours and we added white to our paints to make a lighter shade. These paintings took several sessions. First we drew outlines of our pictures in chalk, then we painted our flowers, the vase, and the table top. In the last session we painted the backgrouds a contrasting colour and made some finishing touches with pastel. Come and visit our classroom to see the finished paintings!

Flowers everywhere!

We have been learning how to make sketches of flowers. We looked closely at different types of flowers. We saw that flowers have different sized petals. Some flowers only have four of five petals while others have more then ten! We transferred our sketches onto another piece of paper and used pastels to make our flowers vibrant and colourful. We then dyed the backgrounds of our flowers with a contrasting colour. Our next project will be to study the work of Van Gogh, we are going to create our own paintings of flowers in a vase. Come and visit our classroom to see our beautiful work.

Exploding Volcano!

Room 2 and Room 4 put on their green hats (creative thinking) and became scientists!

We made our own volcano and created a chemical reaction (chemical change) by adding food colouring, liquid detergent, baking soda, vinegar and water. After mixing the baking soda and vinegar we watched the chemical reaction, green lava fizzed and bubbled out the top!!

We are interested in finding out how baking soda and vinegar CHANGE when they are mixed together.

WATCH OUR VOLCANO BUBBLE!

The Flat Stanley Project

On Friday we started a Flat Stanley project. Flat Stanley is a book by Jeff Brown about a boy named Stanley who is flattened by a bulletin board and becomes as flat as a pancake. Because he is flat he is able to fold up and travel in an envelope, and in this way he travels around the world on lots of adventures. We are each making our own Flat Stanley to post away in an envelope to someone we know in a different city/country. We are looking forward to hearing about the adventures our Flat Stanley will go on and seeing photos of him travelling in a different city. Flat Stanley will help us learn all about interesting places all around the world.

Don't forget to bring in an address of someone you know who lives in another country or in another town in New Zealand.

Anzac Day

Today we learnt about carrier pigeons and the special job that they had as messengers in World War I and II. We found out about Cher Ami who was a brave carrier pigeon, he even won a medal! We decided to make our own carrier pigeons. We found it quite tricky to write notes on the tiny pieces of paper! Have a look at some of our work.

Time

WALT (We are learning to):

1. Tell the time to the hour and half an hour
2. Sequence events in the day
3. Determine if something takes a long or short time
4. Order the days of the week

We made a giant class clock and practiced making different times to the hour. It was fun! Here are some photos.

It would be great if we could practice telling the time at home. Try answering some of these questions:

- What time do you wake up on weekend mornings?
- What time do you eat lunch or dinner?
- What time do you go to sleep?
- What time do you feed your pets?
- What time does the sun go down?

- How long does it take you to get dressed?
- Walk, drive or bike to school?

CHANGES...

As part of our inquiry learning this term we are discovering changes that occur in our world. We have already brainstormed different things that we think of when we hear the word "change." Come and have a look at our inquiry board and read some of our ideas.

We are going to begin our discovery by looking at the different ways that we have changed since we were babies.

Please bring a baby photo to school this week :)

Happy Holidays!

We can hardly believe that term one has come to an end! We have had a wonderful time getting to know each other. We ended the term with a wacky hair fundraiser for autism and an Easter egg hunt.

We were very sad to say goodbye to Grace. She is going to America for 6 months! We are looking forward to hearing all about her stay when she returns in October. We will miss Grace, she is such a kind and thoughtful member of room 4.

We will be welcoming a new student to room 4 on the first day of term two. His name is Henry and some of you might remember him from Kindy. We can't wait to meet him!

Happy holidays everyone!